[Yum] A few simple questions

[Jim Wildman]

Sticking new kernels into a working install directory means you have to
update all of your install media.  Plus, this way of doing things keeps
the install as 'stock' with the updates separately.  Makes for a cleaner
maintenance/support information.

On 7 Oct 2003, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:

> I'm getting yum going and so far it's keeping a hundred or so machines
> updated without any problems at all.  I even have a nice setup where I
> can stage updates to test machines before I roll them out to everyone.
> But I have a few questions:
> 
> ---
> 
> I've seen folks structure their stock RPM repositories as "base" and
> "updates".  Is there some special reason to do it this way instead of
> keeping "base" updated constantly?  I install new machines from the
> same repository and I certainly want them to get the proper packages
> at install time rather than having to install them and then update
> them.
> 
> ---
> 
> What's the best way to maintain a set of "default packages" that can
> change over time?  Occasionally I need to add a package to the default
> set, and when I do this I need all of the machines on the network to
> install it automatically.  I know I can set up yumgroups.xml and do a
> "yum groupinstall blah", but that just installs what's in that group
> at that time.  If I add a package to the group I don't think the
> regular nightly update will grab it.
> 
> So far I see two options: modify /etc/cron.daily/yum to do the
> groupinstall every night, or make a package that has nothing but
> dependencies and install it.  Then when I add a package I can update
> this RPM and the nightly update will take care of everything during
> dependency resolution.  Is there a simpler way?
> 
> ---
> 
> Has anyone tried keeping laptops updated?  The problem I see is that
> they won't always be on the network, but I don't know how badly things
> will blow up when that happens.  I also can't do IP restrictions on
> the server and I'm not sure if I can do any kind of secure or
> authenticated HTTP to get the packages.
> 
> Thanks for yum and any info you might provide,
> 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Wildman, CISSP, RHCE                                jim at rossberry.com
http://www.rossberry.com